Ludwig Micallef 

"The ability to measure, manage and optimize will make marketing accountable, and will help transform it to a profit centre where return on investment can be measured."

Hype Cycle for CRM Customer, Kimberly Collins, Gartner

It is one of the most important targets of contact centres to maximise the performance and return on investment of outbound campaigns through performance maximization, and Collab's Outbound Predictive Mechanism is one of the strongest weapons in a contact centre manager's arsenal in this regard .

An automatic system dials contacts in advance, and connects contact centre agents directly to those calls that were answered. This means that agents no longer have to waste time waiting for the call to dial in and the target client to answer.

In fact Predictive mode eliminates time wastage on calls such as busy, voicemail, unresponsive, etc. This means that all agents are engaged in calls with target clients, maximising their productivity and minimising time wastage.

Obviously one of the most complicated issues in such a situation is how many calls the system should make in order to have just the right number of replies - in other words not to have too few replies which leaves agents idle, or too many replies which leaves target clients fuming on the phone.

The Outbound Predictive mode carries out evaluations every 2 seconds to determine the number of calls to be launched or cancelled, with a real time performance adjustment. To do that, it uses an advanced stochastic algorithm, which learns through what has happened in the past and guides the prediction process. According to the current conditions and the previous statistical information, the system decides when it needs to launch more calls, or cancel some that are being initiated (if it foresees that there will not be enough agents to receive the calls on time).

This algorithm is extremely efficient because:

• It averages 3.6 seconds between calls.
• It uses the campaign's current statistics and current time, in an active learning process.
• It can predict the outcome of each call, with the possibility of dropping invalid calls and launching more contacts when the current conversation is about to end.

Instead of the traditional scenarios with "two brains": PBX and CTI software, OneContact controls everything in a centralized platform. This means that there are undeniable and  quantifiable advantages in the efficiency of the predictive algorithm - for example the ability to quickly evaluate and compare the number of "idle" and "soon to be idle" agents with the number of calls that are being dialled at any point in time. ER

High performance and a centralized management allows a detailed nuisance ratio control, because OneContact can react automatically to the variations in the success rate of dialed contacts and, if necessary, cancel (in real-time) dial sessions that are no longer necessary., ensuring that the contact is cancelled at the dialling stage, that is, the phone doesn't even ring on the client's end.

Collab's OneContact solution is a multimedia contact centre software solution, offering a complete and integrated communications management for call centres -  including voice, video, email, instant messaging and social networks. For more information, you can contact Alert by visiting our website on www.alert.com.mt or +356 2060 1234

Ludwig Micallef is the General Manager of Alert eBusiness, local resellers of Collab Communications solutions. www.alert.com.mt. Member of the Alert Group - www.alertgroup.com.mt

 

eMarketing Update

Online Christmas Shopping is going strong in Germany this season! HDE predicted that total sales volume for German B2C ecommerce in 2014 would reach €39 billion and expected Christmas spending to account for more than 25% of that, at €10 billion.  These figures represent year on year growth of 17.0% and 18.0%, respectively, in a single year.

The “Consumer Barometer” published by Google and TNS in October 2014 confirmed that buyers of a wide range of products and services, including clothing and footwear, appliances, leisure travel and insurance—were making their purchases online. Almost two-thirds (63%) of all consumers polled who bought hotel accommodation in the previous year did so online, and at least 40% had purchased car insurance, clothing or shoes on the web in the same time period.

 

For more eMarketing news go to www.alertemarketing.com

 

Tech update

eMarketer estimates that 51.0% of the UK’s population used a social network at least monthly in 2014. The decoupling of social networks from the desktop means that people are accessing their social media accounts off their mobile devices, and accessing them more than ever before.

 

Amongst millenials, ie those born after the turn of the century, this is leading to social media usage starting the moment the alarm clock sounds in the morning. According to a November 2014 survey from Lightspeed GMI, more UK 18-to-24-year-old internet users (26.9%) first checked their social media profile in bed when they woke up than at any other point of the day. Among those ages 25 to 34, that proportion wasn’t far behind, at 23.2%.